


in the missing

by mrsalenko



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2514671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsalenko/pseuds/mrsalenko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>his mother told him that she met his father while he was on leave, early one morning in downtown vancouver. he had bumped into her while she was buying coffee and it had spilled, red-hot, down her raincoat. she had been annoyed and he had been smitten.</p>
<p>kaidan thinks it rather trite now. he had used to think it was sweet, even romantic, if he could bring himself to use such a word about his parents.</p>
<p>romance for him has been contextualized to mean small combat boots, a sweat-soaked utilitarian black sports bra, and hurried kisses. he didn’t think he could kiss someone now without wanting it to be a secret, without feeling daring and brave, the defiler of rules.</p>
<p>even he thinks that sounds a bit conceited. since when did he become more than some freak with metal in his brain. since when did he think he could be special in a good way.</p>
<p>times has blended all into one singularity. it seems endless and also so short. the only way to live in this new reality, the singularity of time, is to become something more than his old self, something made basic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the missing

his mother told him that she met his father while he was on leave, early one morning in downtown vancouver. he had bumped into her while she was buying coffee and it had spilled, red-hot, down her raincoat. she had been annoyed and he had been smitten.

kaidan thinks it rather trite now. he had used to think it was sweet, even romantic, if he could bring himself to use such a word about his parents.

romance for him has been contextualized to mean small combat boots, a sweat-soaked utilitarian black sports bra, and hurried kisses. he didn’t think he could kiss someone now without wanting it to be a secret, without feeling daring and brave, the defiler of rules.

even he thinks that sounds a bit conceited. since when did he become more than some freak with metal in his brain. since when did he think he could be special in a good way.

times has blended all into one singularity. it seems endless and also so short. the only way to live in this new reality, the singularity of time, is to become something more than his old self, something made basic.

so he sits as his desk each night when he can and pares himself down. he likens it to the way a woodworker shaves strips of wood until they are smooth and… cleaner. clean. yes, he would like to be clean, to wash it away.

on his bad days, he does his paring with drink, the alcohol beating through his system in time with his heart. it’s not really the cure, just a step on the way. alcohol… dulls. for a while. for hours. for minutes. sometimes for the night if he can fall asleep and it can keep him under, hide him from the nightmares

the tasks he used to find joy in become hollow, but he performs them just the same. he is so very grateful for his job, for the opportunity to click his weapon into place, to lace his boots, to listen to orders, to think about the mission.

it makes the whittling easier. he becomes a kaidan more equipped to survive this.

to survive her.

they tell him that she died with her ship. joker says she came back for him, but it was all too late, that he reached for her but she was knocked away.

he supposes he has to process that shepard died via suffocation. he has to somehow reconcile that fact in his life. that he fell in love with someone and then they died.

it’s very logical. it’s not very hard to understand. people die every day, younger and even more unfairly than her. he didn’t like it but certainly understood it before.

but as his brain seems to roll it around, it gets stuck. it’s like when kaidan was a kid and trailed after his mother or father when they did housework. they had an old fashioned clothes dryer in the basement that still dried clothes by making them tumble around and around. sometimes, when it was too full, an article of clothing would get stuck and his mother or father would reach in to free it.

his thoughts wouldn’t be freed. they got stuck on the tumble, the part that said that shepard would never be able to speak to him again.

he wonders if in some universe that shepard was his one, that they could have been like his parents are. grown old.

he would have liked it. maybe shepard wouldn’t have. maybe she…

maybe she wouldn’t like it, he thinks as he pares. what was that saying? ‘if wishes were horses…’

something. he doesn’t quite know what it means but he knows on what he’s not meant to dwell.

he visits his mother and she is kind to him in a way only she ever is. it’s a childish kindness, an indulgence. she looks like him, amber eyes, the set of his jaw, his frown.

she says ‘kaidan, what’s wrong?’

and he smiles and kisses her cheek and says ‘nothing, mom. everything is fine.’

it is. he was seeing someone and now he is not. she is dead and technically buried, legally if not physically. why should he mourn longer than the military find seemly.

his father is the same as always. he’s reading a datapad in the living room.

'hey, dad.'

'hello, kaidan.'

they drink beers together. kaidan plays with the label on his, recalling the way shepard would shred hers off, working her thumb under it, rolling it between her fingers.

they had been out clubbing once on a short shore leave, on the citadel for resupply and some petty errands. well, shepard had called it ‘clubbing’. it was more like brooding lately. he wondered what upset her. he didn’t think it was him at all. she let him into her cabin every night and moaned his name in a way that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

a pimply-faced young man had sidled up to shepard where she sat with kaidan drinking in companionable silence.

he’d eyed the way shepard’s jeans hung low at the back, her tall boots, how her hair fell into her face, how she looked rakish and more alive than anyone in the room.

'hey, honey, can I buy you a drink?'

shepard had looked up, as if surprised to see someone speaking to her. kaidan thought she was beautiful, maybe not like the other people here, but in a way that had nothing to do with physical features but the way something inside her shone out.

'no, thanks. i'm good. got my own drinks.'

she hadn’t seemed angry, just mildly annoyed to be interrupted from wherever her thoughts had been. kaidan said nothing. he was just happy to be sitting with her, to feel comfortable and happy in a silence. not even touching her, just being near her was enough.

he didn’t need her to drape herself on him. he didn’t need to hold her hand constantly. it wasn’t their style.

he didn’t feel a twinge of possessiveness or jealousy at his girlfriend being hit on right in front of him. shepard had a peculiar way of letting you know exactly how she felt about you, without saying a word. she was also notoriously disinterested in the general public unless they were paying her or needed saving, kaidan noted with amusement as shepard seemed to look straight through the kid with her special kind of apathy. maybe apathy was the wrong word. it was more that she didn’t have room for whatever else she was worrying or thinking about, like her job, her friends, her past, they all took up too large a space and she was left with nothing to spare.

'I happen to know, sweet thing, that shredding labels on your drinks is a sign of serious sexual frustration. I can help if you let me.'

kaidan rolled his eyes. that old chestnut.

'nah,' shepard replied. 'I'm fine. you're annoying me now, beat it.'

the kid looked fit to protest, so she stood. kaidan raised an eyebrow. she was shorter than the kid but three times more terrifying. three times more… everything. she wore a sleeveless top and her muscle in her bicep flexed with the movement of her arm. she wasn’t ripped but she was toned and everything spoke of a strength.

she gripped the kid’s wrist. kaidan winced. she had the strongest grip he’d ever felt. when she’d hauled him from virmire, he had a bruised collarbone for days.

the kid looked her in the eyes, his face rift with hollows of alarm, and left without another word.

she had turned to him. ‘no comments?’

'nah.'

'good. come with me.'

she’d taken his wrist. it didn’t hurt him because she chose to be gentle. her bony fingers wrapped around his dark skin, looking stark and pale and deathlike. he wondered if she was healthy, as pale as she was, as tired as she looked lately. her grip was strong though and he was led rather than followed. he thought how he could easily break her wrist, how she was flesh and bone and blood. he hated the intrusive thought, like the ones you get when driving in a skycar a thousand feet up and how easy one flick of the steering wheel would be enough to end it all.

he didn’t like to think of her like that, a series of systems, as a heart and lungs and fragile human things and not larger than life ideas and feelings and emotions. he liked to think of her in terms of eternity and invulnerability.

he had suddenly wanted to marry her, right then in that bar. she suddenly seemed tiny and transient and he wanted to stop that, wanted to build her back up, wanted to marry her and say to the rest of the universe that they had to go away now, leave them alone.

she pushed him into one of the private lounges with the opaque curtains and the table and the sign that said v.i.p, the one supposed to be booked ahead of time, and kissed him. she tasted of beer, cheap and acrid, and she tasted wonderful. he drank deeper, tasting her tongue, her bottom lip, his fingers at the sensitive spot behind her ear.

she moaned too loud for comfort, too demure to be completely unconscious.

it felt all so immediate. he was still trying to catch up with this aspect of his life. that now he had someone like her, that he wanted this, that he was allowed this. she wasn’t afraid of him and she kissed him when he least expected it. that of all people, she was his boss, his CO, his coworker, and the last person he should be doing this with.

it felt so good though, when she ran her hands beneath his pants and stroked him, when she kissed him like he was air and she was drowning.

he never knew why she chose to do things the way she did. kiss him slightly out of tune, grab his hand a fraction too tight, fuck him a touch too desperately. he couldn’t quite grasp the fullness of her, couldn’t know her nooks and crannies, and something spoke to him that he never would, that he wasn’t meant to. she wasn’t meant to be dissected like a cheap book. and if she were one and he tried, the ending would keep changing and the numbers on the page would be meaningless. her story wasn’t meant to be told in neat verses. it was supposed to be splashed on the walls with blood and writ large.

she fucked him in that booth, fast and silently and afterwards he had a pounding headache. it had felt good. it was the best he had felt in years.

when he went to shower to try and relieve some pain in his head, he had found the rolled up beer label in his jeans. he still didn’t know why she did that.

kaidan abruptly spluttered on his beer, spraying his father with some of the dregs.

he murmured apologies and stumbled to his room to fall on the floor and heave like a panicked small child.

how could she be dead. it wasn’t fair. it wasn’t fair!

'give her back,' he demanded to the floorboards. 'I give up. I can't take it anymore. give her back. I don't care. just do it. it's not funny anymore.'

nothing answered him. he growled at the floorboards and tore downstairs, snatching up his coat and ignoring his questioning mother.

he walked and walked and walked but the blood wouldn’t stop pounding in his head and he couldn’t stop his chest from gasping for air. he couldn’t think of anything besides her and not the good things, just the injustice of her being gone.

he would offer anyone in her place. he would rather be dead himself.

he was suddenly furious it wasn’t him. why couldn’t he have died in the ship, why couldn’t she be the one here, moving on with her life, because surely she would have handled it far better than him. him and his stupid stupid bleeding heart.

she would be fine. she would maybe be sad for him. maybe he could have been the one she referred to as an interesting love affair, spoken about in hushed happy whispers when you’re older and the golden days are long past.

it wouldn’t have killed her like it seemed to be killing him. she was always the strong one.

he sat on a rock he found in the small copse of trees miles from his home and sobbed like a small child, until snot and tears mingled on his face.

she still didn’t come back to tell him to stop, that she was embarrassed over such displays for herself. he got tired of it and stopped for himself and then walked to the supermarket to buy some more beer, the excuse ready on his tongue for his parents.

that night he asked his mother again what she thought of his father when they first met.

'I thought he was a stupid ass,' she said fondly. 'turns out it was the best day of my life, aside from the day you were born.'

kaidan sipped his beer. he was supposed to feel something at that, but he had a dull tired ache inside.

'you're an idiot,' shepard said. 'you're too sweet. you didn't have to get me this.'

she took a large bite of the chocolate bar, rolling it on her tongue.

'you don't actually have to buy me presents. I told garrus that everyone has to get the captain of a ship presents because I knew he'd panic and take it seriously.'

she laughed.

'I like buying you things.' he kissed her quickly on the lips. it tasted sweet.


End file.
